PICK OF THE WEEK

Róisín Murphy
Evil Eyes (Play It Again Sam)

This one stands miles apart from anything else this week. I may be biased given that I grew up listening to Moloko, but Evil Eyes sounds unique, uncompromising and honest up against the rest. Róisín proves that there’s still hope for pop music; she can do nowt wrong in my ears.

Après
Chicago (SubSoul)

I can’t work out whether I’m supposed to like this or not. One half of my brain is saying “You’re 10 seconds into the track and two of the most recognisable and bait samples in house music history are running simultaneously already” (the intro to Frankie Knuckles’s Your Love and the a cappella from In The Beginning There Was Jack), while the other half knows that if I heard it at Glastonbury on a pill then I’d be cuddling my pals telling them how much I love them and moaning about how they don’t make them like they used to. Either way, this is what happens when you type “house music” into YouTube: recognisable but lazy.

Maroon 5
This Summer (Interscope)

“This summer’s gonna hurt like a motherfucker.” That may be so Adam Levine, me old pal, but in reality this just screams of: “This tune wants to make me and my mates a whole load of publishing cash and if I get my arse out in the music video then a load more views, too.” I thought this dude had sacked off his band to be that annoying guy from The Voice but unfortunately he’s back and he’s got the pecs and the electro beat to prove it. I’d be very surprised if this one doesn’t feature prominently in that film about EDM starring Zac Efron.

Show N Prove ft Benny Banks
Fact (All Around The World)

Has a chorus that goes: “I put my borough on the map.” Jackmaster goes: “I’ll take your borough off the map with one review.” It does my head in when British rappers go over beats that sound so American. Grime was good because it was real, it was UK, and it wasn’t trying to be something it’s not. This guy should represent his borough (I Googled and Benny is from Islington, BTW) by being himself instead of trying to be Rich Boy. I’m being polite here cause him and his pals look well road in the video and would definitely kick my head in.

Arches ft Karen Harding
New Love (Relentless)

A half-decent singer like this is wasted on this Belgian sub-Disclosure. Karen: call me and I’ll introduce you to the real Disclosure bros and we can take it from there.

Sarah Harding
Threads (Underdog)

I’d like to slag this off but she used to go with one of my mates and is the type of bird I’d bump into down in Soho and give me a bollocking for giving her a bad review. So for those reasons we’ll go with “echoes of vintage Elastica with a poppier edge – wicked stuff.”

Jackmaster plays Seth Troxler’s Acid Future, Tobacco Dock, E1, Saturday 8 August